The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines infrastructure as the ‘underlying structure’ of a country – specifically, the physical installations needed to ensure that its economy functions for the benefit of society. Modern infrastructure is made of steel and concrete and is ubiquitous in an advanced economy; typically, it is taken for granted by the people who depend […]
The commitment to environmental governance in the 1990s was preceded by a civil society movement to create national parks and wildlife refuges. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Amazonian nations created a dozen or so national parks, thanks largely to the efforts of farsighted and passionate individuals with political influence. In most […]
A tropical rainforest is composed of thousands of species of long-lived trees, each with a natural history characterized by unique morphological, physiological and reproductive attributes. Very little was known about the ecological processes within these plant communities in 1980 when ecologists began to establish long-term studies to document their composition, structure and function. In one […]
The economies of nations are traditionally evaluated by their gross domestic product (GDP), a metric that measures the total economic output of a nation. The GDP of the Pan Amazon was approximately $US 270 billion in 2017, a modest number in a global economy valued at $US 80 trillion in the same year. By way […]
The Amazon, home to the largest tropical forest on the planet, is an irreplaceable natural asset with enormous biodiversity and a critically important component in global carbon and water cycles. The Pan Amazon, which includes the full watershed and the rainforests of the Guiana Shield, is a geopolitical territory spanning nine nations that have been […]